Setting a palette knife as part of January’s project has produced some beautiful results, reminding me to use one more often. Take a look and enjoy!
From Marion: I find myself looking closer and closer at the use of transparent colours in the rock, the darks contrasing with the transparent lighter areas with their sense of texture and depth. Agree about the rocks in the upper right; a glaze with some very dilute titanium white would help knock them back a bit.
From Marion: It’s clearly a tool that works for you! You’ve used it beautifully to convey the sense of movement in the water, the angular rocks, the softness of the sand and clouds. I would never have guess you’d not used one before.
From Marion: I think it’s very much one to be pleased about. The composition pulls the eye both across and into the distance; the mark making is visually intriguing and pulls me in for a closer look; the cloudy sky is an area of calm that contrasts with just enough going on to entice me to look closer. The two figures give everthing a sense of scale, and even though they’re so minimalise there’s a sense of being buffered by the wind.
From Marion: I agree, the rocks are too elongated. I see them like octopus arms. I’d be tempted to crop off even more from the right, and if you think this makes too tall a painting, some of the sky could be cropped off too.
I like the abstract mark making in the sea, the mixing of colours; the direction of the marks gives a lovely sense of depth, and then crashes into the angular rocks in the foreground. I do find myself looking at the sky and feel there’s a sense of sideways movement, of wind moving the clouds particularly top left, which would then mean there’s be a sideways movement on the sea, so I might soften that.
From Marion: You may not be sure about it Bee, but I certainly like your results! The texture, angularity which suits the subject, intriguing colour mixtures … it keeps revealing the more I look. What you may well find is that a combination of knife and brush works better for you, rather than pure knife painting.
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From Marion: I think you’ve taken my suggestions and done just what the painting needed, though you might still straighten the sea horizon line with a confident stroke from edge to edge or using some masking tape.
From Marion: I think you’re really getting a feeling for doing rocks this way, the “complicated mixing” of colour on the painting itself combining with the directional mark making.
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I had several goes at this scene using a palette knife, and was reminded what fun it can be to use a knife and what range of mark making it offers, whether I’m working on paper or board/canvas. Particularly that squishy pattern created by putting a knife down flat and lifting it up (sure there’s some art-speak term for it!) as in the detail photo on the left below:
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